Episode 266 – Mark Choey, Co-Founder, HighNote Labs

Episode Summary:

Today, our guest is Mark Choey, Co-Founder of HighNote Labs, a software company that holds the mission to provide innovative tools for the top agents in real estate.

In this episode, join Mark and me as we dive into some of Mark's most significant accomplishments and his companies' impact on San Francisco's neighborhoods. We also discuss Mark Choey's latest venture, HighNote Labs, launching later this year!

Top Takeaways:

Mark Choey's Advice for New Agents
"You need to think about your real estate business and you being in the business, as a business. There needs to be a marketing component, expertise component, and a focus. As an agent, you need to figure out what your focus is going to be. We tell this to every agent that joins our brokerage."
"You need to stand out because there are 1.4 million agents out there. Every market is competitive, and you need to figure out what is going to make you great. What is your niche, marketing angle, and who will you be providing your services to?"

"You get three transactions in one. You represent on the buy side, and you wait for them to sell again and then represent them on the sale. Then you represent them on the buy again. If we focus on this strategy three-to-one. Now, District 9 is 25% of all the market share in San Francisco!" – Mark Choey [23:04]

"One of the major things that an agent wants to convey to their client is a validation of themselves. Reviews and testimonials are everything. Before you buy something on Amazon, if you're deciding between five or six things, not only is the price important, but the reviews are the most important thing. The same goes for real estate. The reviews and testimonials are the most critical piece because you don't know who this agent is, and you need trust. Trust is everything in a business, and the reviews and testimonials is that piece." -- Mark Choey [32:17]

Episode Highlights:

[00:30] Intro

[00:56] Meet Mark Choey – Founder of HighNote Labs

[01:59] Growing Up in the Diverse State of New Jersey

[04:14] The Spirit of New Jersey Through Football and Attending Rutgers University

[06:46] A Focus on Electrical Engineering and Artificial Intelligence

[10:09] Transitioning from New Jersey to Colorado

[12:23] How Mark Got His Start in Real Estate

[18:17] Climb Real Estate and Pivotal Moves in District 9

[24:43] Coming to the Decision to Sell the Company

[27:54] HighNotes.io – Building Great Tech for Great Agents

[34:29] Providing Agents the Tools for Beautiful Presentations

[36:32] Mark's Advice for New Agents

[38:44] Connect with Mark

[39:07] Closing Thoughts

[39:35] Outro

Episode Notes:

Joining us today is Mark Choey, Founder of HighNote Labs and the Co-Founder and Partner of Climb Real Estate. Only two and a half miles outside of New York City, Mark Choey grew up in the town of Teaneck in Bergen County, New Jersey. Mark identifies his hometown as being a very diverse community and a great place to grow up.

Mark Choey attended Rutgers University sharing his take on why Rutgers football perfectly embodies the true Jersey spirit. With a love for technology and computers, Mark received a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering. He studied wireless engineering and even performed research studies on early wireless protocols surrounding transmitting data. Mark's undergraduate work led to a job opportunity with US West Advanced Technologies conducting more wireless research in Boulder, Colorado. While in Boulder, Mark received his Master's in Electrical Engineering focusing on Artificial Intelligence.

Later in his career, Mark Choey spent time in Asia, where he founded a start-up company called Geckonut.com, a community for travel bloggers and travel agencies. When Mark returned to the United States, he landed back in New York City. He was the Vice President of Citigroup, gaining real estate investing and buying experience before moving west to the San Francisco area.

After meeting his business partner on a chance at an open house, Mark Choey and his partner founded Climb Real Estate, now noted as one of the largest real estate brokerages in the San Francisco area. Here, Mark and his partner focused on District 9, a historically industrial section of town, and could be a part of the buying and selling of over 25,000 units in the area. District 9 in San Francisco now holds over 25% of all San Francisco market share, which allowed Climb Real Estate to become a top 250 brokerage in the country within only five years.

At the beginning of 2019, Mark Choey founded HighNote Labs, a software company dedicated to building the next generation of tools to power the top real estate agents to act as the intersection between real estate, technology, and design. HighNote.io allows real estate professionals to create, send, track listing presentations, buyer offers, and share market reports. HighNote Labs is just getting started as new possibilities for the software are being discovered as they build great technology for the industry's top real estate agents.

Mark Choey's advice for new agents is to think about real estate as their own business that needs marketing, expertise, and focus component on reaching success. The agent needs to focus on what they want to be and who they are going to serve. Finding a particular market with a specific niche will allow you to stand out among other agents in the competitive world of real estate!

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